


Please don't drop me home

by Cirkne



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, Multi, Polyamory, Road Trips, Trans Rich, autistic christine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 14:13:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11083275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: Michael keeps singing. It takes Rich some time to get what it all means.





	Please don't drop me home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [klaviergavout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klaviergavout/gifts).



By the bonfire, Rich wonders how fucked up it is to ask your friends to keep your head underwater until you feel like you’re drowning. Christine’s sitting next to him, eyes mostly closed, the blanket she brought from the car thrown over her shoulders. Jeremy’s fidgety, keeps moving when the fire smoke changes direction, eyes red and tired. They’re too exhausted from the road trip to really do anything but sit there. Even Michael’s calmer, mostly watching the fire and humming, switching to singing and then back to humming every few seconds, the most Rich catches from him is a quiet:

" _There is a light._ "

They weren’t planning to stop yet but both Michael and Jeremy got too tired to drive. Christine can’t, and Rich only has his license because the squip did everything for him. Michael’s been teaching him since everything happened but he’s not confident to drive in the middle of the night yet. Not with them three with him anyway. 

Rich tries his hardest to not look at the fire. Blinks over the smoke, focuses on anything but the flames. He doesn’t remember much of that night. Not after his squip took over, anyway. A week after he came back to school, Jeremy helped him wash off the “arsonist bastard” someone had left on his locker, in permanent marker. One of those words was true. 

“Rich,” Michael says, the song he was humming hanging in the air, unfinished. “You wanna go to the car and sleep?” Next to him, Christine hums.

“The smoke’s bad for you anyway,” she says and Rich pretends he doesn’t know why they don’t like him near fire, the same way he and Jeremy pretend it’s coincidental Michael and Christine are always the ones to get drinks. He feels like a kid sometimes, afraid of something that doesn’t exist. Afraid of monsters in the form of fizzy drinks and the color green. He says:

“I can’t go to bed first it’s-” and cuts himself off when he realizes it’s a rule the squip made up. Breathes out. “Uncool,” he finishes weakly, hangs his head. He’s been trying. _They’ve_ been trying.

“You wanna go be uncool together?” Jeremy asks, moving away from the smoke again, this time closer to Rich. He looks the least tired out of all of them but he also looks sad, now. Fingers twitching. He’s biting his lip. Not in the attractive way people do in movies, in the nervous Jeremy way, pulling skin off with his teeth. It’s weird to have gone through the same thing and yet have no idea what it did to the other. 

“Yeah,” Rich answers, fights back the _please_ that climbs up his throat and falls into step next to Jeremy. They’ve grown closer since everything happened. Mostly because Michael wouldn’t stop pushing them into situations together, convinced that they needed to talk about everything. Compare it, Rich guesses. They haven’t done that yet, but they talk about video games and math homework. Michael’s shitty car. The places they should and won’t visit on their road trip to New Orleans. Shitty cafeteria food and, on one slow afternoon in Michael’s basement: the best cereal brand (it’s lucky charms, of course, Jeremy shouldn’t have even argued). 

The point is, they haven’t talked about their squips. It’s not exactly a pleasant conversation topic. _Hey! This all-knowing computer in my head told me that I was useless and should be dead! What did yours say?_

“You’re thinking again,” Jeremy whispers, and opens the back door of the car. Rich squints at him in the dark, climbs into the driver’s seat. Mostly because it’s the most uncomfortable place to sleep in in the car and he learned to sleep anywhere back when he was five, so he leaves the other seats for them.

“I’m always thinking,” he answers, turning to look at Jeremy in the back. He’s leaning against the door, leaving space for whoever’s going to join him in the back. Michael, probably. 

“Yeah,” Jeremy answers, quiet. “Me too.”

Rich doesn’t answer, turns back to look at the bonfire, Michael and Christine’s silhouettes barely visible in its light. They’re leaning against each other now. They sing along to the same weird songs Jeremy and Rich have never heard of in the car. Rich smiles to himself, feels suddenly overcome with affection. He didn’t have friends before the squip. 

“At least we have each other,” he says and feels like a loser for three entire seconds before Jeremy adds:

“And them.”

“And them,” he agrees, rests his head against the window, closes his eyes. He’s drifting by the time Jeremy speaks again:

“Do you think he was right to forgive me?” his voice so unsure Rich almost thinks he’s imagining it. Opens his eyes anyway, and in the front mirror sees Jeremy looking at him. He doesn’t know what to say, if he’s honest. Michael wouldn’t leave Jeremy’s side when he was knocked out in the hospital, kept asking Rich how much of what you do when you have the squip is conscious choice. Rich had wanted, so badly, to say it was all of it, afraid of the things he did when he was desperate to fit in. 

“We did fucked up shit,” he answers, winces at his lisp, the barely understandable _shit_. “Forgiving you is just as right as not doing it would have been.” 

There’s a pause before Jeremy says:

“I’m sorry Jake still won’t talk to you.” He’s said it before. So have Michael and Christine. Rich closes his eyes again. He shouldn’t have expected anything else. Not just because of what he did at the Halloween party, but also because Jake did not know him before the squip, before the smooth voice and confident walk. Before endless knowledge of sports and a constant stream of girls to discuss. Their friendship was never based on anything real. He’s about to say it’s fine when the passenger side door opens, and then a second later so does the one behind him, Michael continuing a conversation Rich did not hear:

“I’m hopeful.”

Rich pretends he’s fallen asleep until he actually has. 

*

“No,” Michael says, rummaging through his backpack, “because I thought of this. Fire won’t kill him because he turns into toast if he gets burned.”

“Mm-hm,” Jeremy hums, not really paying attention, trying to look up places to eat nearby on his phone, dragging his feet on the ground, getting dirt on his already worn down shoes.

“So,” Rich says, smiling. “Loafman is a firefighter and he turns into toast when he’s burned.”

“Yup,” Michael smiles, pops the p and finally pulls out his shirt out of the backpack, grinning triumphantly. 

“That still doesn’t give him any super powers, Michael,” Christine says, bending herself in half to catch all of her hair in a band.

“He’s… super buff?” Michael says - asks, rather, pulling his T-shirt over his head to put on the shirt, glasses hanging just above his forehead in his awful, messy hair. They must be such a sight to any cars that pass by though it’s still early and Rich has only seen one so far. 

“Rich is super buff. Doesn’t mean he has super powers,” Jeremy mutters, still clicking through his phone. 

“The powers of being cool, maybe,” Rich answers, grinning and winks at them though no one’s watching him. 

“The powers of burning down houses,” Christine says, pulling herself up, hair too short to really stay in the bun she’s trying to achieve, and she smacks her hand against her mouth when she realizes what she’s said.

“I _did_ kinda turn to toast after it,” Rich says, absently running his hand through the scars the burns left, and they all burst out laughing at the same exact moment. 

* 

“That’s fucked up, Michael,” Jeremy says as he’s pulling into the walmart parking lot. It’s started to rain, lightly, but Jeremy knew they’d be stopping soon so he hasn’t turned on the windshield wipers yet. Rich’s view of the store is warped by water drops. Over the rain, Michael continues singing:

“ _And if a ten-tonne truck kills the both of us to die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine._ ” Usually he sings happier songs. Maybe the rain’s getting to him. It’s definitely getting to Christine or at least the clouds are, she’s been quiet since they left Virginia. Rich thinks to himself she must be powered by the sun, the way plants are. 

The arrow on the navigation screen jumps roads in a silent protest against Jeremy taking a detour. Ten minutes into their drive he had yelled for it to shut up. They do not trust computer generated voices anymore. Instead, whoever’s in the passenger seat instructs the driver, or rather Michael and Jeremy instruct each other and bicker like kids over turns and shortcuts.

“I’ll stay in the car if that’s alright,” Christine says, fingers sliding under the collar of her shirt- or Jeremy’s shirt rather, because he packed enough for a month rather than a week and, toothpaste still stuck to the corner of her mouth this morning, she had asked if it was okay to borrow one. She pulls out a soft looking pendant now, squeezes it between her fingers. Rich has seen her chew on it before. She puts it in her mouth again, the red of the pendant against the white of her teeth. 

“I’ll buy you chocolate,” Jeremy tells her, opens his door to climb out. Christine hums in response. Chocolate is not a sustainable food source, but they all have their _things_. It’s not any worse than the cans of Dr. Pepper that Rich stacks in his room. Doesn’t even enjoy the taste if he’s honest, but Michael can’t always drive you to awful hipster stores to buy overpriced soda, so Rich takes any red thing he can find. “Rich,” Jeremy says, sticking his head back in the car with a voice too patient for a seventeen year old. “You wanna stay too?”

Rich blinks, realizes he’s been stuck in his seat and shakes his head. He’s been doing it a lot since, getting lost in his head. Jeremy, his head in Rich’s lap on Michael’s basement floor, had said that there was too much free space left for them now that the squip was gone. 

“Sorry,” Rich says and unbuckles his seatbelt, climbs out. Christine doesn’t turn to look at him, lifts her feet up on the seats. Shoes and all. Usually Michael would tell her off for it. Rich closes his door as quietly as he can, afraid he’ll scare her somehow. She’s probably not a plant. Some sort of woodland creature, maybe. 

Rich doesn’t like rain, tries not to shiver at the drops hitting the back of his neck. Michael grabs for his hand, laces their fingers together. He’s done it before, but never in public. Rich frowns.

“You look out of it,” Michael says. Explains. Rich nods. Blinks. Leans into Michael, lets him lead. He’s not wearing his binder since they’re going to be in the car for most of today. His hair’s grown out too, just a little. Mostly because it’s hard to make decisions after the squip so he doesn’t yet know if he wants to cut it at all. Michael squeezes his hand when they walk in. Rich passes for a girl like this and no one knows them in North Carolina so it’s fine, really. Doesn’t stop his hands from feeling sweaty and his neck from going red. 

Jeremy, like a reminder he’s still there, leans into them as they walk into the store. Maybe without realizing it. He has always been too tall for Rich’s liking. To the strangers it seems that he is the third wheel. Rich watches him fix the tag on Michael’s shirt, push it back behind his collar with his long fingers. Michael doesn’t react, keeps looking around to decide where to go, what they need. The strangers are wrong, of course. Sometimes Rich wishes they weren’t. That’s a lie. He wishes there was no third wheel at all. He wishes-

He kind of wishes it wasn’t raining, because his head feels like it’s filled with cotton balls and the back of his neck is wet, which makes him restless. He breathes, turns to look at the exit. Catches sight of an employee standing at self checkout. They’re cute, sort of swaying in place. Their hair is red. Dyed. Rich leans more into Michael.

“I want to dye my hair,” he says.

“Cool,” Jeremy replies behind him and Michael asks:

“What color?” as if Rich hasn’t been holding onto every red thing he finds. Jeremy is standing too close to him. Rich can feel his shirt pressed to his back, and Michael is radiating heat even through their damp clothes. Rich closes his eyes. Breathes out. The blue of Walmart is suddenly too much for him. 

“I’m going back to the car,” he says. Like a kid. Doesn’t know what he wants. Michael is still holding his hand. Warm and steady, which is good, usually. Good in the dark of his basement or on Jeremy’s too-small-for-all-three-of-them bed. But it’s raining now and Rich doesn’t want anything touching him, ever.

“I’ll walk you back,” he says. “Jeremy will see if they sell hair dye here, ok?”

Rich hums. Once again, lets Michael lead him. It’s raining just a little harder now, like the universe is there to make fun of him. Rich starts walking faster and Michael easily does the same. Right before they reach the car, Michael lifts his hand up to his neck, sticks the tag of his shirt back out. Rich doesn’t know why. Doesn’t have the words to ask. 

Christine doesn’t have the words to ask anything either. Doesn’t watch Michael put Rich’s seatbelt on for him. Rich does. Michael’s hair, wet, has started to stick to his forehead. Before he leaves them alone in the car, Rich runs his finger up Michael’s sleeve. His shirt is even more wet now but still soft and red. Rich wonders if the reason he likes Michael so much is because he wears so much red.

Christine, squeezing the pendant between her teeth rather than actually chewing it, presses her fingers to Rich’s knee, like a quiet promise it’s okay. This feels awfully dramatic for a little rain. They watch Michael walk back to the store. Wait. The rain doesn’t let out. Rich’s back sticks to his seat and he drums his fingers against his leg.

When they return, Jeremy places a kitkat and red hair dye on the back seat, between Christine and Rich. He could have kept the hair dye in the bag which Michael rests by his feet, but Rich grabs for it nonetheless. The shirt tag is back inside Michael’s shirt. Rich feels like there’s something he’s missing. As the car pulls away, Michael sings:

“ _And in the darkened underpass I thought oh God, my chance has come at last,_ ” Jeremy turns on the heating and the wipers, finally. Then, the radio. Michael laughs over the pop song that starts playing and calls him a dick. It drowns out the rain, somewhat. Christine offers Rich half of her kitkat. 

* 

“Three Fionas?” Jeremy asks, eyebrows lifted, biting into his burger, getting sauce on his lips. Michael’s still messing with the jukebox by the entrance, cursing once in awhile. The seats here are sunflower yellow and Rich plays with the straw of his milkshake while he listens to Christine and Jeremy talk. He forgets, sometimes, that they’ve broken up with how they interact, their conversations a song of sorts, like there are scripts they have learned and no lines are out of place.

“Yes!” Christine nods, happy he’s getting it. “So the oldest Fiona rips the books. It’s really emotional and--” Rich tunes them out, turns to watch Michael, tongue sticking out as he’s concentrating. Like there’s anything to concentrate on. Like he’s a cartoon character. Sometimes Rich hates his friends. And by hates he means he doesn’t at all, it’s just strange finding friends he doesn’t have to pretend in front of. He did care for Jake and Chloe and Brooke, but it was different with them, every move calculated, every word weighed on his tongue before it left his lips. 

“I made a playlist,” Michael calls, happy, walks back to them.

“A playlist?” Christine echoes, and Michael motions for Rich to scoot over so he could sit down.

“Yes,” Michael grins. “A jukebox playlist for the roadtrip. You won’t believe the songs they have on there, it’s totally cool. We have to stay here until all of the songs finish.”

“Alright,” Jeremy answers, offers Michael his milkshake.

“Aw, Jeremy, did you get vanilla just for me?” Michael asks, pulls the milkshake to himself and Jeremy doesn’t answer, bites into his burger again. The song that was playing ends and it jumps to the next track, Rich, Christine and Jeremy groaning in unison as Michael sings along:

“ _We’re no strangers to love._ ”

*

The last song to play, Rich realizes after it has already finished, is the one Michael was singing in the car this morning. Christine clings to his side as they walk out of the diner and, the same way he did in the car, Rich thinks that maybe he’s missing something.  
*

They dye his hair in a motel in Atlanta, red running down into the shower drain. Later, kneeling on the ugly floor of the bedroom they got, Jeremy kisses him, trembling fingers running through his hair and bitten down lips against his and the puzzle pieces they've been throwing his way fall into place, suddenly. Like a video playing in reverse, he sees the outcome before the cause of it hits him. 

“Oh,” he says when Jeremy pulls away and turns to grin at Michael. Christine grabs for Rich’s hand and he only really notices when he’s already laced their fingers together, squeezes her hand and she squeezes back, smiles at him. “Oh,” he repeats, quietly, his heart thundering in his chest, his breathing, suddenly, much faster than it was a moment ago.

“Hey,” Michael says, noticing first. “It’s ok, buddy, you breathe, we’re not expecting anything from you, I know it’s scary, but it’s just us, ok?”

Rich swallows, nods and closes his eyes.

“All of us?” he manages, voice unlike himself.

“Well there’s a lot of talking to do first, you know, work everything out, but yeah,” Jeremy answers. Christine squeezes his hand again.

“Wants us to give you space?” she asks, and Rich realizes how much the idea of them leaving him, if only for a moment, terrifies him and he shakes his head, leans into Christine and breathes slowly. He thinks he’s been waiting for this ever since he woke up in a hospital bed to see Michael sitting by an unconscious Jeremy. 

“Fuck,” he says after his breathing calms down. “I really didn’t notice, huh.”

“Neither did I,” Christine tells him, reassuringly. “Michael had to nudge me in the right direction.”

“Nudge,” Rich repeats absently.

There’s a pause and then there’s a song playing and Rich smiles and opens his eyes, finally, looks at Michael, smiling back at him.

“You’re a loser,” he says and Michael’s smile grows wider. When Michael kisses him, Christine starts singing along to the lyrics. 

“ _I never, never want to go home._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> the song is "there is a light that never goes out" by the smiths


End file.
